AAP Agenda for Children - Strategic Plan

The mission of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is to attain optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. To accomplish this mission, the AAP shall support the professional needs of its members.

Core Values

We believe

In the inherent worth of all children, they are our most enduring and vulnerable legacy.

Children deserve optimal health and the highest quality health care.

Pediatricians, Pediatric Subspecialists, and Pediatric Surgical Specialists are the best qualified to provide child health care.​​​

Multidisciplinary teams including patients and families are integral to delivering the highest quality health care.

The AAP is the organization to advance child health and well-being and the profession of pediatrics.​

Vision

Children have optimal health and well-being and are valued by society. Academy members practice the highest quality health care and experience professional satisfaction and personal well-being.

Universal Principles

All priorities in the Agenda for Children have strong affinity with the mission, core values, and vision of the AAP. Certain issues impact the organization at a higher strategic level and have a very strong bond with the core values of the AAP. Different than issues with a defined resolution, they are more like “ideals” embedded in the organization. They are present in the “fabric” of the AAP. The AAP refers to these “ideals” as universal principles. Advocacy, Education, Research, Service and Policy initiatives should advance these principles at a high level and must not run counter to them.

Certain issues have an identifiable, direct impact on the various stakeholders of the AAP, but they ebb and flow in a tide of complex forces, many outside the direct control of the AAP.

The AAP has a tremendous investment in acting on these forces to move priority issues in a positive direction for children and AAP members. These are issues where the AAP is “in the game for the long term”, and it is recognized that the work on these issues may never be fully accomplished, yet they are assessed carefully for annual progress.

The Child Health Priorities selected for inclusion in the Agenda For Children directly relate to advancing a clinical aspect of child health care.

When a child health issue is added to the Agenda for Children, it moves through a three-phase process: 1) planning; 2) implementation and 3) integration. Progress on all child health issues is evaluated at each Board of Directors meeting for up to three years. At the three-year implementation period, the Board assesses how an issue is best “integrated” into the structure of the Academy on a longer term basis.

Integrated priorities went through planning, implementing, and integrating phases of the strategic plan. While these child health priorities are no longer listed on the strategic plan graphic, they remain a part of the AAP Agenda For Children.